KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Naz Baloch on Sunday announced parting of ways with the PTI and joining the Pakistan Peoples Party saying that she was impressed by the PPP’s ideology and philosophy.

Ms Baloch announced this decision at the PPP media cell in Clifton in the presence of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and PPP women wing president Faryal Talpur.

Describing reasons for quitting the party with which she had started her political career, Ms Baloch said although she had had a good time with the PTI, she was disappointed to see that the party had deviated from its manifesto. She said now the party had been taken over by elders by rejecting the youths and the party which had raised the slogan of change had changed itself as such it was no longer the party for which she had joined it.

Alleges Imran Khan ignoring Sindh, youths

She said she did not work for Imran Khan but her services were for the country as an activist on social media but the PTI restricted itself to Punjab for politics of the centre. Ms Baloch said although the PTI bagged over 800,000 votes in Sindh, Imran Khan did not pay any attention to organising and activating the party in Karachi and other parts of Sindh. He only visited Karachi for a few hours and on the occasion, too, the party workers were kept away from him. She said she had drawn Mr Khan’s attention towards that fact and asked him to give time to the workers also, but to no avail.

She said contrary to that attitude of the PTI chief, the PPP was the party which had given even the highest government offices of the country to its workers. She said in the PTI decisions only male members were given importance and women party workers were kept at a distance and the youths were restricted only to social media. “That is why disappointed ideological party workers are quitting the party and joining other parties,” she said.

In reply to a question, she said the PTI was defeated in the Karachi by-election because the offices of the PTI in Karachi remained musical chairs among four members becoming PTI Karachi president one after the other, ignoring the party, and the mandate given by the people to the party was wasted.

She said she belonged to a political family as her father had worked with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and she got political training from her father and now was returning home and was very happy as the PPP was the only party which had an organisational structure and that Bialwal Bhutto-Zardari was the leader of the youths. “I have joined the PPP as an ordinary worker and would now work for it,” she said.

She said Saeed Ghani was an active party leader, who had contacted her and satisfied her by answering her questions about party working and the issues before the nation.

In reply to another question, she said her services under the leadership of Imran Khan as a daughter of Karachi were known to everyone. Ms Baloch said she did not like to hurl accusation on the PTI but wanted to tell Imran Khan to pay attention to party affairs. However, as far as she was concerned her journey with the PTI had come to end.

Welcoming the decision of Naz Baloch, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said her joining the PPP augured well for the party. He recalled that her father was a member of the assembly with his father Syed Abdullah Shah. PPP women wing chief Faryal Talpur also welcomed Naz Baloch on joining the party.

PTI reaction

Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf information secretary Shafqat Mahmood shrugged off Ms Balochi’s decision to leave the PTI.

Answering a question at a press conference in Lahore on Sunday, he said Naz Blaoch’s joining of the PPP would not harm the party as she was holding no party office in the PTI.

Mansoor Malik contributed to this report from Lahore

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2017